VIII. Still, it’s the Super Bowl and there is always a chance at a viewership record. “All we need for Sunday is a close game,” CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus said via conference call. “…If we don’t set a record, I will be disappointed but life goes on.”

IX. Advertisers are betting you’ll be watching. The 30-second commercial spots have sold for an average of $3.8 million each with some going for as much as a record $4 million.

X. Director Mike Arnold, who calls all the live camera shots, said a successful Super Bowl broadcast is one that isn’t the subject of Monday morning quarterbacking. “We don’t want people saying, ‘Boy I wish I would have seen this or why didn’t we see that.”

XI. Arnold will have 62 cameras at his disposal.

XII. A regular-season game on CBS may have as few as nine and as many as a dozen cameras.

XIV. Producer Lance Barrow of Colleyville, who is in charge of the overall game production, is responsible for replays.

XV. The latest gizmo at Barrow’s disposal is a “Heyeper Zoom” camera system, a new technology that produces the absolute slowest- motion with higher resolution than standard replays.

XVI. That makes Barrow as crucial to the game as any official working on the field.

XVII. Barrow got his Super Bowl start at CBS in 1978 as a spotter for Pat Summerall and Tom Brookshier during the Cowboys victory over the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XII.

XVIII. The halftime show at the Superdome that day was “From Paris to the Paris of America,” featuring the Tyler (Tx). Junior College Apache Belles, Al Hirt and Pete Fountain.

XIX. The TV audience was 78.9 million.

XX. Beyonce, from Houston, will perform during Sunday’s halftime.

XXI. Jim Nantz, a Houstonian at heart, will call play-by-play in his third Super Bowl.

XXII. Phil Simms, the analyst, will be working his seventh, which ranks behind only John Madden’s 11 in the booth.

XXIII. Madden’s first Super Bowl was in 1980 when he worked in the CBS studio.

XXIV. His studio mates that day were Brent Musburger, Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder and George Allen.

XXV. Simms’ first in the booth was for NBC in 1996 when he worked the Cowboys 27-17 victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers.

XXVI. Diana Ross starred in that halftime show.

XXVII. The lone Cowboys feature during pregame programming Sunday comes on Simms’ “All-Iron” show from noon to 1. Leon Lett and Don Beebe will make their first joint television appearance since Super Bowl XXVII.

XXVIII. If you are too young to recall, let’s just say Beebe forced an embarrassing, but ultimately meaningless, goal line fumble by the Cowboys defensive lineman.

XXIX. Kevin Harlan and Boomer Esiason will be on the radio call for the Dial Global radio network. Locally it will broadcast on 105.3 The Fan.

XXX. Esiason will scramble over from the CBS pre-game set.

XXXI. You remember Esiason. He was the first on air to take the Cowboys to task for allowing Josh Brent on their sideline against the Steelers after the death of Jerry Brown.

XXXII. Harlan is best known for calling NBA games for TNT while broadcasting in two styles: louder and loudest.

XXXIII. If you think no one listens think again. Last year’s game drew a U.S. radio audience of 23.1 million.

XXXIV. The Ravens-49ers will be carried on more than 700 radio stations from coast to coast.

XXXV. Speaking of Esiason, the CBS pre-game show runs a relatively modest four hours, beginning at 1 p.m.

XXXVI. Green Bay Packers linebacker Clay Matthews joins the pre- game as the designated current player brought in to lend insight.

XXXVII. Yes, the pre-game will offer up predictable features on the coaching Harbaugh brothers as well as Ray Lewis and both quarterbacks. Best of the features could be “Player Safety and the Future of the Game.”

XXXVIII. There’s a live 15-minute Scott Pelley interview with President Obama in the White House scheduled for 3:30 p.m.

XXXIX. Of course, CBS will offer three hours of pre-pregame programming.

XL. There’s NFL Films’ “Road to the Super Bowl” at 10 a.m. Wynton Marsalis on his hometown of New Orleans at 11 a.m. and Simms’ All-Iron effort at noon.

XLI. Did we mention that CBS will have cameras dedicated to each Harbaugh brother on the sideline?

XLII. Then again, it’s not out of the norm for networks to pay attention to coaches.

XLV. Meanwhile Nantz said he is looking more forward a postgame moment than any during the game.

XLVI. “When those two coaches meet at midfield,” Nantz said. “How much joy? How much despair? How will they balance that?…One a winner, one a loser with the biggest stakes in the sport and it has all just been settled. Looking into their eyes, what are we going to see?”

XLVII. If that’s enough to entice 111.3 million plus one to watch the game, CBS will be ecstatic.